China fund buys stake in London's Heathrow Airport

The Chinese government's main sovereign wealth fund says it has bought a 10 percent stake in the operator of London's Heathrow Airport, expanding its investments in British infrastructure.

China Investment Corp. gave no financial details Thursday but Ferrovial, the Spanish company that owns 49.99 percent of Heathrow Airport Holdings, said the fund paid other shareholders a total of $725.8 million to acquire its stake.

CIC was created in 2007 to manage a portion of China's multitrillion-dollar foreign reserves in hopes of earning a higher return. Its early investments were mostly small stakes in publicly traded companies to avoid stirring political opposition abroad but the fund has begun making bigger direct investments.